Congolese security forces are brutally cracking down on opposition groups and local militias two months after sealing a deal that would see President Joseph Kabila cede power this year, jeopardizing the transition plan as well as the nation’s broader stability.

A deal sealed in the final hours of 2016 calls for national elections by the end of 2017 and bars Mr. Kabila from running again. But instead of implementing the accord, the president’s forces have intensified the campaign against dissent.

Activist groups say government forces have killed some 180 people since the Catholic Church brokered the transition deal on New Year’s Eve, setting the country on a tragic trajectory toward surpassing last year’s death toll of 480 people. Meanwhile, there are indications peaceful opposition groups are radicalizing, a development some observers said risks tipping sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country back into civil war.

The United Nations Security Council warned last week that the killings might constitute war crimes, as would reports, if verified, that at least one local militia was recruiting and deploying child soldiers to battle security forces.

Opinion-poll ratings for Congo President Joseph Kabila, seen at the United Nations in April 2016, have fallen to 40%, the lowest at any point during his 16 years in office.
Photo:
jewel samad/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The unrest has spread to usually stable regions in the central region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the capital Kinshasa and rattled conflict zones in the east and south. It is damping voter registration, further dimming the prospect of holding national elections by December, as foreseen under the transition agreement.

“The turmoil is a reflection of the growing sense of insecurity the government currently feels,” said
Charles Pembroke,
an analyst with U.K.-based PGI Intelligence.

Critics say Mr. Kabila, whose approval ratings have dropped to 40%, the lowest point in his term, is using his government’s security apparatus to get an edge over the opposition, weakened by the death of leader
Etienne Tshisekedi
in February. They also fear the violence could benefit the president, who has been in office since 2001, by offering him an argument for a need for stable leadership in a country that has a history of triggering regional conflicts and making an election practically impossible.

Lambert Mende,
Congo’s information minister, meanwhile, on Feb. 24 accused the opposition of trying to topple a “legitimate government.” Mr. Kabila’s supporters point to a ruling by the constitutional court that allows the president, whose term officially ended in December, to stay in power until a successor has been elected.

Supporters of Bundu dia Kongo, a religious sect, watched Red Cross members remove dead bodies from Ne Muanda Nsemi's house in a suburb of Kinshasa on Feb. 14 after police opened fire during a standoff.
Photo:
Aaron Ross/Reuters

The political standoff has prompted violence on both sides. Before dawn on Feb. 14, police surrounded the gated residence in a Kinshasa suburb of sect leader and opposition lawmaker
Ne Muanda Nsemi.
When he refused to surrender, police opened fire, killing several of Mr. Nsemi’s supporters.

Police said they discovered a cache of knives, spears and gasoline bombs inside the compound. Mr. Nsemi was organizing an armed insurrection against the government, a police spokesman said.
Basangana Ndunga,
the head of Bundu dia Kongo’s political wing, said the group was peaceful and the weapons were purely for self-defense.

Police have clashed periodically with Bundu dia Kongo separatists in the Kongo Central province, in the west of the country, but the raid was the first time their battles have spread near the capital.

In a further sign of destabilization, activists last week released a video that appeared to show Congolese troops massacring men, women and children in the central Kasai province, a stronghold of Mr. Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress. The U.N. Security Council said it was concerned by reports that a local militia, Kamuina Nsapu, had been recruiting child soldiers.

The government denounced the video as a montage of previous clashes, put together by its opponents, but said it would nevertheless heed Western calls for further investigation.

A week earlier, the U.N.’s human-rights commissioner said his office had received reports that at least 101 people—including 39 women—had been killed in clashes between government forces and Kamuina Nsapu, whose chief was killed in August. Local activists said Mr. Kabila’s push to have his supporters fill vacant chieftaincies in the region triggered the latest fighting.

Attacks have also targeted facilities of the Catholic Church, an institution that usually enjoys respect across faith groups in Congo. The church’s head, Cardinal
Monsengwo Pasinya,
said attempts by unknown assailants to torch a seminary and vandalize churches “sabotage the church’s mission of brokering peace and reconciliation.”

If Mr. Kabila continues to drag his feet on implementing the transition plan—including by agreeing on a new prime minister and cabinet with the political opposition—and fail to properly investigate recent atrocities, there is bound to be more bloodshed, some analysts warn.

“Militias and the opposition are also aware that Kabila’s regime is weakening. An escalation of the violence is inevitable” said
Jason Stearns,
the director of the Congo Research Group at New York University.